TWO TRIUMPHS

Accounts of England’s triumph in South Africa and of a local fund-raising triumph for NAS West Norfolk.

INTRODUCTION

My title refers to one great sporting triumph and one fabulous fund-raising triumph, which I shall cover in that order.

SOUTH AFRICA SUCCUMB TO
STUART’S BRUTAL BROAD-SIDE

An extraordinary Test match at the Bull Ring in Johannesburg ended on the third day. South Africa batted first and reached 313 without anyone managing a half century. England gained a lead of 10 largely due to the batting of three people, Root (110), Stokes (58) and Bairstow (45). South Africa had a tiny bit of batting before lunch which they achieved without loss, before things started to happen immediately thereafter. Stuart Broad settled the match, the series and the destination of the Player of the Match award in 10 overs which brought him 6-17 (I heard the commentary on the first five, but had to leave with South Africa score 67-8, and by the time I was back from my engagement, the last two South African wickets had fallen and England had knocked off their victory target for the loss of three wickets).

FABULOUS FUNDRAISING SUCCESS
AT COSTA COFFEE (HARDWICK)

Molly, a barista at the Hardwick branch of Costa Coffee who has an autistic brother and whose mother is a former chair of NAS West Norfolk decided to do some fundraising on our behalf. She managed to raise £335.20 in cash which Costa will be matching with a direct payment into the NAS West Norfolk bank account, meaning that in total the organisation benefits to the tune of £670.40 from her endeavours.

We had arranged a presentation and photo-shoot at Costa Hardwick at 2:30PM today (not being clairvoyant I had not realized when I agreed to the arrangement that it would mean missing England sealing their series victory over South Africa).

Of course, it was not only at Costa itself that I got some photos…

Now for the fundraising pictures…

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For reference NAS West Norfolk chair Karan McKerrow is the one in the middle, Molly the fundraiser is to her left as you look and the store manager is on the other side.

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A Music Workshop for Autistic People

An account of attending a music workshop organised by NAS West Norfolk, with plenty of photos, also some important links.

INTRODUCTION

This afternoon I attended a music workshop organised by NAS West Norfolk. The title of piece of this post, acompanied by many photographs, is about this workshop.

OUTWARD BOUND

Having established to my own satisfaction the location of Scout Hut 12, Beulah Street I walked out of town along Bawsey Drain as far as Lynn Sport before heading across the open grassland to the scout hut (my direction finding was up to its usual standard, so no hiccups). Although I was under some time constraint I got a few photos on the way…

St Nicholas Chapel looking splendid.
St Nicholas Chapel looking splendid.

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AT THE SCOUT HUT

First up, “hut” is something of a misnomer – it is quite a substantial building. There were many things worthy of photographing there…

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After a brief meet and greet upstairs it was downstairs again to the room where the action was taking place. Fortunately, the music making was being done largely by computer – I would not have inflicted myself playing an actual instrument on anyone (there were some real instruments there but I was careful not to be assigned any of them). In the first session which was group playing I had first stringed instruments and then a couple of keyboard instruments (in computer program form)…

The computer I used to make music.
The computer I used to make music.

The second session involved recording ourselves making percussion type sounds from non-instruments – the results were not nearly as appalling as you might expect.

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These were the twelve things I used to extract percussion type sounds.

I have a few more pics from the building to display…

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HOMEWARD BOUND

For the walk home I headed down to King Edward the Seventh Academy, along to Tennyson Road and through to Seven Sisters, finishing up by heading along the riverbank. Here are the pics from that section of the day…

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LINKS

Not so many links as as I sometimes have, but still enough to split into sections.

THE LABOUR LEADERSHIP ELECTION

Two links in this section:

  1. Mark Steel has produced a typically amusing ironic piece in the Independent by way of responding to the decision to refuse his application to register as a supporter.
  2. Vox Political on another Blairite grandee who has proven unable to resist sticking his oar in, on this occasion the ignoble Lord Mandelson

MAINLY AUTISM

I am including in this section a petition calling on the government for a full assessment of the impact of welfare cuts on disabled people. My other two links are to an online publication called The ASD Times. They have been kind enough to include some of my stuff, so here a couple of links the other way:

CONSERVATION

Two links in this section…

  1. A call to keep the pressure on South African Airlines to do the right thing and refuse to carry hunting “trophies”.
  2. Mark Avery tackles a by-product of driven grouse shooting – traps.

ATHEISM

Two links and an infographic here…

An Autism Awareness Day Event

A brief, personal account of an Autism Awareness Day event organised by NAS West Norfolk.

INTRODUCTION

This is a brief post devoted to an event that took place at Gaywood Community Centre today.

THE EVENT

As someone who lives in the centre of King’s Lynn there was only ever one way I would be getting to an event in Gaywood: walking. Although principally concerned with locating the event I did get one pic en route…

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I heard the event before I actually saw it because they had a live music act performing…

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After briefly taking in what was on offer I headed to the main National Autistic Society stall, picked up a flier and took some photographs…

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I spent £2 on tombola tickets and £1 on a keyring (It was an NAS keyring featuring Thomas the Tank Engine – as an autistic railway fanatic named Thomas I could hardly not buy it!).

I did not stay terribly long, but I was very favourably impressed – while it was not really my type of event it was very vibrant and very well attended – well done the NAS. The homeward journey yielded another couple of pictures…

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RELATED LINKS

I will present these as a bulleted list: